Just Genjustsu
by Bhel-Elryss
Summary: All she knows is Naruto died. By Sasuke's hand. Kakashi died, and the Kyuubi attacked. Except...they didn't. And, if she has anything to say about the matter, they won't. My take on a time-travel fic. Edited & On-going.
1. Chapter 1

Haruno Sakura waits at the gates for the retrieval team to come back. Day turns to afternoon, and afternoon to night. As the moon rises in the background, she is the first to greet the heavily injured, the first to see Chouji before he is ensconced behind a near impenetrable curtain of medics and the first to watch Neji limp back. The others come back one at a time, in varying states of wellness, and her chest tightens with worry.

The guards finally send her home when the shift changes near dawn, and she collapses into her own bed for hours of fitful sleep. The sun is high in the sky when she wakes again, feeling bedraggled and groggy. Regardless, she returns to the main gate, insistent on being the first to welcome errant Sasuke-kun and Naruto back. Eventually, when the sun is setting and she's nodding off at the seat one of the watchers provided her with, she feels the hand on her shoulder.

Kakashi-sensei stands behind her; eye shadowed and with dirtied hands. He looked a little like that after Wave too, she remembers, stiffly getting to her feet. He shakes his head, and gestures for her to follow. "You're not going to like this." He says simply, never one for small talk. They walk in relative silence, though Sakura is nervous.

"They're…they didn't come through the gate." She comments, trying to probe her sensei for more information. The roiling of her stomach is a combination of fear and sheer anxiety; her hands haven't stopped shaking since the invasion.

"No." Kakashi-sensei replies, but pauses for a moment, "Naruto came back a different way." They keep walking, Sakura's mind whirring with that information, trying to make sense of it. The hospital swallows them both up, and they ford the busy torrent of nurses and teams and the exiting visitors to descend the stairs.

Four flights of stairs and a mountain of accumulated fear later, they stop in front of the morgue's doors. Kakashi-sensei stares at her, and her fingers scramble to find purchase in the fabric of her qi pao. She knows what he's going to say next, it's in the set of his shoulders and the furrow of his lone visible eyebrow.

"Don't – " she says.

"He's dead, Sakura." Kakashi-sensei says at the same time, and she knows that if she looks into the room behind those door her stupid, well-meaning teammate's blond head will be in there. Lying on some cold slab, dead and gone and that means –

"Sasuke-kun?"

"_Killed_ him." Kakashi-sensei says bluntly, coldly. _Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash_, she remembers. She feels numb, and politely excuses herself. Her night is full of nightmares, and she avoids her sensei by belatedly pitching in with the cleanup efforts.

All she knows is that Naruto is dead, and Sa – Sasuke killed him. She knows why, she remembers every word of what Orochimaru said in the Forest of Death after all. For power, Naruto had died. For power, Chouji had almost died. For power, Sasuke had become a traitor and a missing-nin.

And she had been left behind to pick up whatever pieces hadn't been shattered by the death/betrayal of two-thirds of her team.

Kakashi-sensei drops Team 7 without much pomp shortly afterward, just a note and an implied apology. Her team dissolved ignobly, a Hokage stamp of acknowledgement on papers filed away quietly. Sakura spends the rest of her original service contract in the medic corps, and takes to it like a fish to water. She guiltily consumes the information, hoping that maybe she'll be able to keep someone else's teammate alive (make up for failing hers). She thinks of how proud Naruto might have been of her for reviving that dying fish ("Wow, Sakura-chan you're so cool!"), and it makes her feel guilty, but proud as well.

She saves Shino's life with her skills, the designated team medic after an injury kept Hinata from the field. It helps her sleep at night, knowing that she can perform like that under pressure. She makes circuits, joining teams as needed, performing as support for whichever team was short-staffed in between shifts at the hospital.

With only minimal guilt, she thinks she might be able to move on.

She's just turned nineteen when she is summoned to Affairs. "Haruno Sakura?" The overworked career genin affirms, before handing her the pamphlet and notecard. _Grief Counseling_, the pamphlet reads. The notecard has a date and time, notating when and where Hatake Kakashi's funeral will be.

The funeral itself is sparsely attended, and Gai-san is crying in the front rows. Despite her stint as the Hatake's student, she feels like an outsider. Everyone here is her sensei's age or older. She hears from behind her, "Poor dear. Such a talented thing." The elderly kunoichi who says it looks like she could be a relic of the Second Shinobi World War.

She didn't know her sensei like these people obviously did; she doesn't even know why she's here. She leaves after an acceptable amount of time has passed, listening to Gai-san's tears and the somber muttering of the grandmotherly ninja behind her mourning the "poor unlucky dear."

The reformed Kyuubi attacks a month later, orange tails whipping through the air in its rage, sending waves of superheated steam boiling from their surface. She's not on the evacuation details, but she knows they should be finished by the time the chakra construct breaches the walls.

The call goes out, triage needed. She and the rest of the medics scramble for cover in the wrecked city, pausing as needed by prone bodies, assessing who can be saved and who should be left behind. The walking wounded get instant treatment, healing chakra applied to their meager wounds. She's long been able to compartmentalize, so she shuts away the self that screams. She can't think that she's sending these freshly healed troops back out to face death.

She can't think that Naruto would be screaming at her to heal the Hyuuga gurgling behind her, with his lifeblood squirting out of his ruptured carotid artery. ("Sakura-chan how could you!") She can't think like that. That way laid the survivor's guilt she'd attended therapy to overcome, the never ending nights of wondering, what if?

She pushes Naruto's voice from her head, as shrill and demanding as she'd remembered, and moved on. The Hyuuga behind her no doubt still struggling to breath, the black ribbon tied snuggly to his bicep quivering with every shake of the dying nin's body.

The roar of the creature is frightening, but it's just one more thing to compartmentalize. She has a job to do, and quivering in fear is one thing she won't do, hasn't done in years. Softly whispering to one victim pinned under half of a collapsed apartment complex, gently tying a red ribbon ("Sakura-chan I know you can help him!") around the genin's wrist, she ignores the shrieking whirr of a caustic orange tail smashing into a building across the street. Keeps that compartmentalized, right up until the building's shrapnel punctures straight through her chest, slicing across her neck and arms and back, when her hard-won composure begins to fail.

She's dying, and she knows she doesn't have the chakra reserves left to heal herself. With shaking hands, she ties a black ribbon around her own arm, and gives into that niggling voice in the back of her head ("Sakura-chan!"). Pouring what chakra she could spare into the genin wouldn't save her legs, but it might save the kid's life.

She wakes up screaming, legs akimbo and clad in the red qi pao she'd long outgrown. Sakura draws in shaky breaths, trying to remember what was going on. She…she was twelve years old, she recites, knowing it for a certainty. She knows for certain that she is newly graduated, that she has never been on a single mission.

She also knows for certain that she was nineteen when she died, and her head _hurts_. She stumbles back to the little post by the memorial stone; one hand pressed over one eye to (hopefully) mitigate the pain. Naruto, tied to the tallest post (_and isn't that so familiar?)_ does a full body wiggle when she passes into sight. "Sakura-chan!" He calls, and she flinches (_"Sakura-chan!"_). "I was about to have Teme-sensei go get you! I was worried!"

The sensei in question (_two months dead?)_ blinks at her with his one eye, clearly unamused with Naruto's name calling. She accepts the little bento he hands her, noting only briefly that Sasuke received the second one. She waits until Kakashi-sensei is gone to survey her teammates. Twelve years old and both alive! Before she can do more than blink at them, Sasuke sourly offers some of his bento to Naruto.

Belatedly, she remembered what supposedly happened next. Shrilly, because her head aches so badly and she's certain that they're all dead except maybe for Sasuke, she offers hers to Naruto as well. And they pass.

But…She's thought…she'd thought –

She suffers through his speech on autopilot, barely taking it in. This was…was all so weird. That night at home, long after he widowed mother has gone to bed, she stands in her bathroom. Her hands clench the countertop so hard the knuckles are white, and one sharpened kunai lays innocently at the edge of the sink.

She stares into the mirror, and knows that whatever she'd experienced, was impossible. There were adverse reactions to genjutsu, and then there was whatever she remembered. So she took the kunai in hand, and began. With each stroke, she vowed that she'd do whatever it took to change.

Each patch of waist length pink hair that fell to the floor was a promise. Genjutsu or not, hallucination or not, what she saw was never going to come to pass.

* * *

I figure it's about time I revamped this. The first two versions I think suffered from sheer rustiness and inaccuracies. Hopefully (and I think it is) this one is better!

So I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my take on a time travel fic. It's uh...not exactly time travel, but i think that's the best comparison I have.

I hope you look forward to the second chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

Her alarm went off promptly at six the next morning, and she groggily remembered she forgot to set it for her team's meeting, rather than for the Academy starting time. After slapping at the snooze button for half an hour, the newly graduated genin hauled herself from her bed and began her routine. Her head itched, and she felt pretty off-balance, but she ignored it in favor of trudging into the bathroom.

The toothbrush paused just outside her mouth; Sakura stared into the mirror at her reflection. Wide jade eyes blankly stared at the stubbly, scabbed mess of her scalp. The toothbrush made a horrendous clattering noise when it hit the ceramic sink as Sakura let out a breathless shriek.

She was crying on her bathroom floor, having passed it all off as a bad dream until the truth looked back at her in the mirror, when her mother scooped her up. "Shh, my baby. It's okay." Sakura cried harder, fearful of what Sasuke-kun, what Ino would think. ("I think you look like a badass, Sakura-chan!") After her mother had forced some calming tea down her throat, as well as small breakfast, and cajoled her daughter into something a little more comfortable than the pretty training qi pao she'd planned on wearing to training, Haruno Mebuki spent the remainder of Sakura's free morning trying to get to the bottom of her daughter's distress.

Nothing worked.

Sakura arrived at the little red bridge with only minutes to spare. The overlarge uniform shirt she'd wrapped at her wrists, to keep the sleeves from obscuring her hands, draped over her usual skintight shorts almost like an embarrassingly short dress. In her own opinion, she thought she looked like a small child playing ninja in their father's uniform. If it weren't for her near-shaved head, she might have even passed for such a child.

Sasuke gave her a brief overlook, before exhaling sharply and turning his head away. Naruto babbled at her, bright and excited and "Wow, Sakura-chan! I don't know why you cut your hair, but it looks really cool! Probably 'cause we're all serious ninja now, right? I bet that's it. Maybe I should get a haircut too!"

She sniffled, earning her a concerned and slightly panicked look from her earnest teammate, and no visible reaction at all from Sasuke. When the urge to cry passed, Sakura spent the time waiting on their sensei with her legs folded demurely underneath her, hands folded in her lap and eyes downcast. All in all, the perfect image of a demure lady masquerading as a ninja aside from the very real forehead protector settled around her neck.

Kakashi-sensei's arrival two hours late irked all three of his students. Naruto stood up from where he'd flopped down for a nap, pointed a finger and screamed, "YOU'RE LATE!" The boy was irate, face reddened and all his teeth visible in a snarl. The jounin laughed lamely, very obviously neither fully amused nor threatened at all by the display.

"So." Kakashi-sensei said, after his laughter had lapsed into an awkward silence. He clapped his hands together, for a moment perfectly projecting Iruka-sensei's morning excitement, and tilted his head to one side. "My cute students! Today we will be running laps around the training ground. Go on then, I'll tell you when to stop."

Naruto whined weakly, and scuffed his feet as he moved to start. Sasuke fluidly heaved himself off the ground where he'd been stretching and started off in a jog. She got a late start, having blinked at the jounin in confusion when he'd immediately pulled a book from a pouch at his hip after his announcement.

("Let's show everyone how awesome you are, Sakua-chan! We can outrun them all!")

Panting heavily, the stitch in her side debilitating and sweat stinging in the scratches on her head, Sakura watched Naruto take yet another lap. Kakashi-sensei had yet to look over the top of his book, but she noticed the flushed, exhausted pinched look to Sasuke's face, and her own legs were shaking from the exertion. Both of the non-Uzumaki students had slowed to what could only graciously be called a power walk, and Sakura was very grudgingly impressed with Naruto's stamina.

She and Sasuke had been the top students before graduation, and while her taijutsu skills were a little shaky due to the concentration of muscular strength being in her legs, neither one of them could be accused of having poor staying power. ("It's okay Sakura-chan, you can only get better from here! We'll outrun Naruto soon enough, just you wait!")

"That's enough. Hm, I think it's time for a little break. Go grab lunch, and be back in an hour." Kakashi-sensei said, landing gracefully after jumping from his perch in the tree. The three genin exchanged looks, Naruto barely panting and just as bouncy and energetic as normal. Rolling her eyes at their sensei, whom Sakura thought might be putting on airs to appear so uninterested in them ("Well…didn't he say he hated us the other day? Maybe he doesn't really care, Sakura-chan…"), Sakura turned towards Sasuke and froze.

He was glaring at her, shoulders hunched defensively. Clearly, she wasn't wanted. "I'm…I'm going to go eat at home. I'll…I'll see you guys in an hour." Brushing past Naruto, she hurried back to an empty house. Her mother had long since gone to work, and well…she could make herself something small.

Training after lunch went just as well, different exercises that left her drenched in her own sweat and shaking from exertion. Sasuke was better off, but not enough to make her remember her hero worship. There was nothing beautiful, mysterious, or dashing about a scowl five meters long and the smell of sweat and dirt and body odor. None of them smelled anything like roses by the time Kakashi-sensei was done with them, and there were rips in her overlarge shirt that would have destroyed her fragile qi pao.

The next few days were similar itineraries of grueling, punishing and near mindless exercises designed to push them to their limits. Sakura found herself petulantly thinking, _this is not what I signed on for_. ("But you got to admit, the rush at the end of the day when we're still standing is something else, Sakura-chan!") Her legs shook, and her arms ached and her whole body was one sore quivering mess from toes to neck.

"He's killing us!" She complained loudly, to Naruto, to Sasuke, to no one in particular. Naruto made noises of agreement, just as wrecked by the constant exertion as she was. Sasuke huffed from where he was laid out and panting, more of a breathless scoff than anything remotely sympathetic.

A whole week of being part of Sasuke's Team 7, and all she had to show for it was unwomanly muscle development and a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that even sleep didn't quite chase away. If she weren't so tired, if she weren't so confused by the conflicted feelings she held for Sasuke, she'd be dejected.

This was that genjutsu's fault, making her life miserable. Sasuke wasn't capable of that kind of murder, no matter what he said during introductions. Well…she didn't think so at least. She was so confused.

"Okay team." Kakashi-sensei said, appearing in their midst in a puff of leaves and smoke. "Tomorrow we're taking our first mission! Exciting, right? So, my cute students let us meet up at eight tomorrow morning!" For a guy with zero visible facial expressions he certainly conveyed his literal nonchalance very well, Sakura groused.

By the time Naruto and Sakura had struggled to sit up, in order to accuse their sensei of intending to be late, the man had disappeared. Sore and exhausted, the three students stumbled to their feet and parted ways. The next morning dawned, and the three gathered at the bridge. Rubbing the sleep from their eyes, they waited.

And waited.

And by noon, they had all lost any anticipation and excitement for their first mission. That was when Kakashi-sensei arrived, practically waving their neat little mission scroll underneath their noses. Weeding. Several hours later Sakura found herself still bent double over an elderly woman's flowerbed. The roses' thorns had pricked her through her gloves, and she knew she'd have to scrub the dried blood from her hands once this was through.

_This_, Sakura thought viciously as she ripped another weed out by the roots from between the proper plants, _is not what I thought I signed on for._


	3. Chapter 3

Training and missions fell into similar patterns. A week of what was essentially glorified endurance and stamina training, sometimes with sparring practice and whatever else Kakashi-sensei thought they'd need thrown in, followed by two days of weeding, trash duty, dog walking, or whatever other chores Kakashi-sensei could pass off as a D-rank mission. Lather, rinse, repeat. Rub the bruises, ease the strain out of limbs, and stretch just in time for two days of "rest."

Aim better, sprint faster, push yourself, push yourself, push yourself!

She wished she'd quit when she'd had the chance, tired as she is of sweat and strain and ruined dresses and shirts and stinging scratches. Naruto laughed, always optimistic and always rising to the challenge. Sasuke is never far behind, pulling himself to Naruto's level and beyond by his fingertips. Sakura wished she had their tenacity.

("It's okay Sakura-chan, we'll get there eventually!")

She felt like she was falling behind. _Her_ limbs still shook after practice, it was _her_ who fell behind during laps, and it was _Sakura_ that still cried into her pillow at the hardness and the frustration of it all. On Kakashi-sensei's team her eidetic memory and intelligence seemed to be held in contempt. What did it matter that she could memorize anything at a blink if she cannot keep up with her more physical teammates? What good is her brain, if her weaker skills get her killed anyway?

Tears and frustration, and a stubborn, bullheaded desire to never, ever give in to the doubt. ("Don't let the bastards get you down, Sakura-chan! Just a little more and we'll show them all!") She gained her ground slower than Sasuke, slower than Naruto, but she gained it. She was pulling herself to their level, slowly but surely. She'd catch them yet.

"Today," Kakashi-sensei drawled, startling her from her wandering thoughts, "We're going to work on genjutsu. Mostly on your ability to sense it and cancel it, as I'm sure my cute students remember the theory from the Academy." Kakashi-sensei went on, and eventually she just rolled her eyes and casually dispelled the illusion her instructor had provided.

A month and a half later, Naruto finally broke. "Please, Old Man Hokage, please. I can't handle another D rank. I want to go on a real mission! Protecting princesses, rescuing lords! Come on!" He whined, punctuating his words with biting, disgruntled looks to Kakashi-sensei.

"Well," Drawled Hokage-sama, before waving forward an unsightly older man who reeked of alcohol and looked decidedly wrinkled. "Tazuna-san would like an escort back to his hometown in Wave country. It's a C rank," he added kindly, mostly to soothe Naruto's building temper. "He's a great bridge builder."

At dawn the next day, after an unpleasant introduction to their soon-to-be charge away from the Hokage's tempering presence, Sakura met up with her teammates by the gates. Naruto was a little subdued by the sheer early nature of the hour, and Sasuke seemed even more grouchy and prickly than normal (not that she cared too much, there was still that weird twinge in her gut every time he got too close that just put her off the Uchiha...just a little. It wasn't butterflies at least, is what she decided she meant).

The sun was nearing a fourth of the sky by the time Kakashi-sensei and Tazuna-san decided to grace them with their presence. The genin were too tired to protest, much at least. Naruto still rallied a token accusation, though any heat behind it had been tired out by the second week of training. Tazuna-san continued to grate on her nerves, though she managed to keep to her manners by the skin of her teeth. It was hot, and it was humid, and Tazuna-san kept up a steady commentary on everything from the weather to the state of his daughter's marital affairs.

Something, a prickle at the back of her neck or a strange sound, made her turn around just in time to catch Kakashi-sensei getting ripped apart by chains. Shrieking, she turned with wide eyes to Tazuna-san at the same time her teammates turned helpless eyes to the only living adult. Within a second though, the training by way of Academy and jounin-sensei kicked in and the three pulled themselves into a standard formation.

Sakura held her kunai at eye level, point facing outwards as she backed herself up against the bridge-builder and then pushed them both back into some cover. Sasuke flanked her on the right, and Naruto on the left, though the latter seemed frozen. She was so frightened, her legs were trembling though her arms were steady. ("We can do it, Sakura-chan.")

When the enemy finally attempted to drive them from their more defensible position, she and Sasuke were able to drive him off. Naruto yelped as one of the claws grazed him, and her heart beat harder in her chest. _This was no way to go on_, she thought desperately, panting from the exertion and panic. Kakashi-sensei was dead and they were just genin!

Clanging sounded from Naruto's position, and she whipped her head around to see one opponent grappling with three Naruto. In her distraction, the second opponent got past Sasuke, and sent his razor sharp gauntlet past her towards Tazuna-san. Shocked, she twisted too slowly.

She yelped when the clawed gauntlet scraped against the length of her neck as the assailant was dragged backwards. "Kakashi-sensei!" one of the Naruto cried, a desperately relieved sound. Both of the enemy ninja were slammed together by their unamused sensei, and they were swiftly secured. Sakura felt like crying, she was so happy to see her sensei.

She brought a hand to the wound, and immediately made a croaking noise. Blood pulsed out of her neck in time with her rapid heartbeat. "Kakashi-sensei!" She managed, eyes wide and a hollow feeling in her chest. She couldn't think past the slickness on her hands, past the look of horror on Naruto's face, the shock and disbelief on Sasuke's. Kakashi's hand on her shoulder, a strange red eye and a wavering green glow (I think we've seen that before, Sakura-chan), and she collapsed.

Gasping, Sakura struggled to right herself. On her hands and knees, she retched over and over again, feeling disoriented and shaken. By the time her head stopped spinning and her guts quieted, she'd slumped over and focused on the ground. The individual blades of grass underneath her hands felt real in a way that _she_ didn't.

(Kakashi-sensei has strange toes, Sakura-chan!)

"Maa, what a severe reaction." His sandal-clad feet arched in a way that she supposed meant he must be crouching down to her level, and she feels his hand resting gently on her shoulder. "Do you need to go to the hospital, Sakura-chan?" Sakura heard Naruto yelping in concern, and felt ashamed.

"No…" Shaking her head only made her feel more unbalanced, so she stopped. "No, Sensei." He made a tutting noise, like he didn't believe her or as though he was disappointed. She wanted to shrink into herself and disappear. Her lower lip quivered, and hot, angry tears splashed down onto the grass. "I'm s-sorry." She whimpered, unable to stem the flow despite clenching her eyes closed and her shallow breathing. Soon enough and she was full on sobbing, dampening Kakashi-sensei's leg wraps and squeaking out apologies.

"I didn't mean to die, Sensei." She managed between hysterical breaths. "I didn't, I'm sorry!" ("Sakura-chan...it's okay, we're okay, and Sensei's okay, and our teammates are okay! And, and we know we have to get better, and we'll work at it, and...and maybe we can stop crying in front of everybody?")

Sakura eventually calmed down, though she kept hiccuping and she had a headache. Kakashi-sensei dismissed training, and after verifying again that she didn't need the hospital, escorted her home. "She had a bad reaction to a genjutsu, Haruno-san." He explained quietly to her mother, as Sakura shuffled off towards her room. "If she has any nightmares after several days, I would think about taking her to see a medic."

The stairs were difficult to climb in her weary stupor, but eventually she managed to tumble into her bed. _Is every genjutsu going to be like this?_ She asked herself, staring at the ceiling without truly seeing it. _We can't...we can't be a ninja like that._ ("We'll figure it out, Sakura-chan.")

Haruno Mebuki quietly closed the door behind the escaping jounin, and immediately ran to her daughter's side and curled up around the exhausted child's frame. "Oh my baby." She mourned, gently moving her thumb over Sakura's temple, careful to avoid irritating the scabs underneath the shorn, prickly hair. Sakura fell asleep, feeling safe in her mother's proximity.


	4. Naruto Interlude 1

Sakura-chan didn't talk to anybody that next morning, not even when Naruto did his best to engage her in conversation. He thought he might have to start asking about what she saw, while under the genjutsu. It was different than what he saw, that much he was sure of. Anything that could make smart, pretty Sakura-chan so frightened and sick-feeling...well...he didn't like it.

Her energy felt okay today, it was back to its pretty, petal blue and only feeling a little greasy. After the genjutsu yesterday, it had been a slick, black whirlwind of fear. He hadn't liked that, and had felt frightened...just a little bit. Even with the distance of a good night's sleep, he still wasn't too fond of that feeling.

"Sakura-chan, are you sure you're feeling better? I can tell Kakashi-sensei that you needed to go home because you weren't feeling okay. Do you need that? Do you need a snack? I think I have some ramen in my kunai pouch! You can have it, if you'd like?" He said, eyeing her with concern and more than a little wariness.

He didn't really want barf on his sandals either…

She just shook her head and sat underneath one of the ground's trees, picking at a sleeve and looking upset. He hated it when his teammates were upset (yeah, even Sasuke-teme. He might not be a nice guy, but Sasuke was dependable and didn't seem to hate him at least, even if they weren't friends, so that was something), but there wasn't too much he could do except find something to occupy himself with.

Sasuke-teme was doing kata, ones he didn't recognize (though the bastard's energy was fluctuating with something...like anger, disappointment, hunger? He hadn't had a lot of practice reading the feel of a person yet, but it was good for simple stuff) from the Academy. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't interested, but what could he even bargain for an explanation? Teme wasn't good with sharing.

"Maa, my short students," Kakashi-sensei greeted them, fallen leaves skittering away from the jounin's feet. "Do we want to guess what today is? Team picture day!" Sakura paled, and her hand went to her hair, and her energy immediately corkscrewed. Actually, that reminded him...she'd been kinda subdued ever since she'd cut her hair.

Maybe she didn't like it?

"Yeah!" Naruto said anyway, putting Sakura's hair dilemma at the back of his mind for the moment. He was immediately busy thinking of all the ways he might make the photo more interesting. Like "accidentally" tripping into paint, and taking the rest of Team 7 with him. Then they'd all show up in a tastefully matching mess.

Team solidarity at its best right?

In the end his prank backfired, and he was the only one wearing paint in their official team photo. But that was okay, because Sakura-chan laughed, and Teme's energy made that little wiggle he'd come to associate with smiles (from other people), and even Kakashi-sensei felt pleased with them! So he felt pretty pleased with himself, for cheering up his more somber squadmates even despite the gross feeling of slowly drying paint.

"And now, oh miniscule subordinates, a mission." Kakashi-sensei said, ruffling Sasuke's hair (much to the teme's distress and annoyance). Without further preamble he handed their mission scroll off to Sakura-chan. He dumped the radios into Sasuke's hands, and patted Naruto on the head. "Now be good," and he vanished.

"What's the mission, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, rubbing at a fast drying bit of paint on his cheek (it itched something awful, never again). "I hope it's not that one with the stupid, evil cat again, I really -"

"Tora-chan retrieval." Sakura intoned, scowling outright at the paper. Sasuke was the only one the cat even could stand, and once Sakura had even gotten scratched! (And it had scarred over a little, so now there were three thin, pale scars along the back of her hand!) Needless to say, Tora didn't like him either, though he always healed up with no problems.

"Last seen?" Sasuke prompted, shoving radios at each of them. Teme was smirking, maybe thinking about the last time they'd gone after the runaway beast. (It hadn't ended pretty at all, Sasuke had calmed her down and it had let Sakura snap a leash onto that collar, but when he'd approached it had literally snapped, snarled and then scratched until it got free. And then Tora had proceeded to lead them a merry chase around downtown.)

"Training Ground 23, according to the group of chuunin using it for practice." Sakura said, squinting at the scroll. "We'll have to be careful, apparently they were testing traps, and aren't sure they deactivated all the minor ones." Sasuke grunted an affirmative, and they moved to position.

Sasuke was taking the northernmost point, Sakura the eastern, and Naruto had been assigned to cover the south and west between him and his clones. The plan was to work inwards, hoping that the quarry hadn't escaped them and that their net would flush Tora-chan towards Sasuke and hopefully a successful retrieval.

The first hiccup was when Naruto noticed one of his clones had dismissed itself. He got the tell-tale flashback, promptly misjudged the distance from one branch to another, and face planted into a tree.

Whatever it was that took out N-4 was definitely not a chuunin-level trap. While he pulled himself back off the floor and careened back into action, Naruto made sure to transmit, "Teme, Sakura-chan, keep an eye out for traps. There's more than just chuunin level shit out here. Over."

They both radioed in an affirmative, and the search resumed. After N-4's demise at the hands of an over-complicated and unexpected trap, Naruto suffered more flashbacks from punctured or trapped clones. Replacing them was but a moment's work, even though it did give him pause. Every now and then, Sasuke or Sakura-chan would radio in, and with each check in the net closed.

"Found her!" Sakura called in, "Chasing her towards Sasuke, over!" He beamed, racing forward. They were close, so close! They reconvened in the large open space at the center of the training field. "Where's that evil cat?" Naruto asked, head swiveling between his teammates. Neither of them would look at him.

Sasuke looked a little battered, and Sakura-chan had definitely suffered the monster's claws. "We almost had Tora-chan, but then a nin-kin ran through and startled her away. She ran this way, but we lost her." Sakura supplied, rubbing at a reddened scratch on her hand with a sort of detachment. "You didn't see her, did you?"

Naruto shook his head in the negative. "Nah, me'n my clones haven't seen her at all." The three genin stared at each other in dismayed silence until various Naruto clones arrived. Clones N-1 through N-3, and N-12 through N-19 all insisted they'd seen nothing.

A couple more clones, dragging behind the rest, dispersed just outside the brush ringing the open area. "Uh...guys?" Naruto hedged, turning with aching slowness towards where N-21 and N-22 had been. "I think we need to go see…" A piercing howl, feline and all the more terrible for it, from the woods. "Tora's stuck in a trap."

Naruto and Sakura had to run dog distraction duty, since the mangy mutt that had scared the demon had also chased it into a trap, but Sasuke finally did get that awful cat. Panting, all three of them were glad Sasuke managed to "coax" the beast into a collapsible carrier. "I hate this mission." Naruto moaned, nicks and scratches already healed up. "Hate it with fire."

Sakura made a noise of agreement, his sense of her feeling lethargic and tired. Sasuke didn't feel much better, though his signature was smug? It felt smug, and tired as well. He wasn't tired himself, but he felt pretty exhausted. That many clones wasn't usually a problem, but the Tora mission always made him feel like his insides had been wrung out.

Gah, he hated that cat!

"Maa, my cute students." As always, Kakashi-sensei's chakra reappeared out of nowhere. Jounin were good at hiding their energy, he'd noticed. "It looks like you caught the creature." And he felt like a smile, despite the mask and the neutral slope of his shoulders, so Naruto smiled up at his sensei.

"Taught her not to mess with the Leaf!" Naruto crowed, before Sasuke's arm smacked into his stomach. His breath gushed out all at once at the impact, and Sakura shook beside him with disguised laughter.

"Okay, settle down." Kakashi-sensei said, and maybe that was amusement twisting his energy like that. "Let's go give the Daimyo's wife her cat back." And he ruffled Sasuke's hair again, once everyone was back on their feet, despite the fierce glower the bastard shot at him.

Naruto kept his senses on the way his team felt, knowing that Sakura and Sasuke both were pleased, and smiled to himself. This wasn't the way he thought being a ninja would go, but he rather liked it. He had a _team_. If they weren't family yet, well...Iruka-sensei always said a team could become like a family. He just had to give it time.


	5. Chapter 5

Tazuna-san, Sakura decided in the split second before her ingrained manners kicked in, was just like her genjutsu-dream. In that he was loud, drunk, and smelled like he'd rolled around on the floor of a disreputable bar. She allowed herself and her teammates that one split second, to react or not, before she tugged Naruto and Sasuke into a shallow bow. ("He's not worth it, Sakura-chan. We shouldn't respect anybody who can't respect us back!")

Naruto even managed to keep his mouth shut for most of Tazuna's vicious stream-of-consciousness whining, that ever present fear of more D-rank missions helping him to keep his temper. But even that couldn't last, and eventually they were chased from the mission desk by an irate Iruka-sensei with orders from Kakashi-sensei to pack properly.

"I don't like him." Naruto proclaimed, still rubbing his ear. ("Shouldn't've let Iruka-sensei cuff it, right Sakura-chan? Now Naruto's gonna bitch all the way to Wave.") "He's an asshole." He announced, like it hadn't been apparent from Tazuna's off-kilter sneers and disgruntlement.

"We don't _have_ to like him," Sakura said eventually, when Naruto ran out of things to complain about. "He's the target, Kakashi-sensei would say so. We protect the target and accomplish the mission objective. We don't have to like him."

("Still don't like it, Sakura-chan.")

Sasuke huffed, and with a gruff, "Don't be late, tomorrow," split off towards his own place. Naruto snorted at Sasuke's back, but bid Sakura his own goodbyes in turn. They'd be seeing more than plenty of each other soon enough. The mission to Wave was slotted to last at least two weeks.

Two weeks without her mother! That would be the longest she'd ever been away from home. Even the Academy's survival test was only a week long, and still within a two days' run from the gates. And her mom was working still, so she couldn't even rely on her mother's packing expertise to help her! Though, if she stopped panicking, Sakura could admit they would most likely look it over once Mebuki got home.

So, with her lower lip secured between her front teeth, she pulled out her rucksack and her father's old sealing scrolls (a little pushing at her mother, one night, had produced them, and some time talking to Iruka-sensei meant she knew, theoretically, how to use them). Clothes went into one pile ("Not the dress, Sakura-chan, what if the skirt gets caught? What about the shorts, you like those!"), weapons and bandages into another, and her disgusting ration bars into another ("I don't like them either, but we might need them, right?")

And, just because she wasn't optimistic about her ability to sleep in the woods, even with a day's journey on her feet, she added a book to the mix as well.

Then, just to see if she even needed to try to use the sealing scrolls, she hefted the backpack onto her shoulders. Or, at least she tried to. The unexpected weight meant she'd barely lifted it off the floor before losing her balance. Yup, she definitely needed to lighten the load.

A little testing with the gross, no good ration bars proved that at least 2 of the sealing scrolls could be worked with, so that was good. She shoved all the food into one, and accidentally tore the second before she could load it with her clothes. Even so, just that one change made the pack much lighter. Light enough she didn't think it would be a problem to lug around for two weeks!

So, straps situated on her shoulders, silence of the house weighing down at her, she put the pack back down. She just needed...air, something to eat. Lunch out perhaps? ("Can we get something sweet, Sakura-chan?")

And the next morning, she wakes up early ("Sakura-chan, this is...it's too early") and goes over her pack one more time. Her mother had helped her look it over, made sure she hadn't forgotten a toothbrush or anything minor Sakura might have overlooked in her inexperience. And then, with an embarrassing smooch to Sakura's forehead (that didn't last nearly long enough, considering just how long it would be before she saw her mother again), Mebuki waved Sakura off, good wishes echoing against the neighboring buildings.

It was almost ten in the morning, but the gate-guard's wristwatch, by the time Tazuna shuffled into view. His gait was stumbling and his breath, once he'd gotten close enough, still stank of old beer. Sasuke's nose wrinkled violently, and his mouth twisted for just a brief moment, before he made his expressions smooth out.

Naruto had no such qualms. ("Well, someone has to say something, Sakura-chan!") "You reek like the bottom of a bar. Didja sleep there too? Huh? Is that why you're all clouded and stuff?" Speaking a mile a minute, Sakura wondered how long it would take before Tazuna tried to shut him up.

Not that that was anything against her teammate. Listening to Naruto's ramblings was a trial on a good day, since so much of what came out of his mouth just didn't make sense.

Regardless, Kakashi-sensei didn't show up until nearly noon. Which meant quickly going through packs in front of the gates in the sweltering, early fall sun, "Just to make sure my cute students know how. You never know what might slip through the Academy." Sasuke's shirts were folded with a sort of precision that she knew her mother would sell her left hand for. Naruto had managed to fit an entire grocery department's worth of ramen into his pack, and she wasn't sure he'd packed anything else. With a considering look at Sasuke's neat pack, Sakura wondered if she mightn't be able to pick his brains on the trip over.

Anyone who could get away with packing that little had to know something she didn't.

But Kakashi-sensei didn't make them unpack everything, and hardly gave them enough time to shove things back haphazardly where they ought to go, however, so she hoped her teammates had managed to pack the essentials as well…

And four hours later, when her foot descended into a puddle that shouldn't have been there, the skin between her shoulderblades prickled with unease. Heart in her throat suddenly, ("Eyes up Sakura-chan, I think we know what's going to happen.") Sakura's hand drifted slowly towards her kunai pouch. Quick-draws, she thought nervously, were often the result of paranoid hands. An Academy textbook had said that, she remembered it perfectly.

Paranoid hands, and survival.

And, most importantly, experience to lend limbs the speed and accuracy they needed.

So when Kakashi-sensei made a terrible noise, aborted sentence-screech cut off by the sound of shredding, her fingers fumbled the kunai, but she got it between her throat and the claw just in time. The shriek of metal on metal elicited gasps from Naruto, but she barely heard them over the sound of her own heartbeat and the taste of panic coating the inside of her mouth.

("Remember Tazuna-san, Sakura-chan! We have to protect him! We - ON YOUR LEFT, SAKURA-CHAN!")

Her eyes flicker left and catch a glimmer of steel. With a yelp, she ducks a vicious sweep of sharp steel and chains from the second ninja, Sasuke busy manhandling Naruto and avoiding the first. Tazuna-san was behind the three of them, technically covered by the tree to his back. Three genin, one frozen in shock, and at least one (me, she thinks grimly) on the not-so-useful edge of hysteria.

Kakashi-sensei is dead, a part of her mind wails! These enemy nin killed a jounin, what could they possibly expect three genin to do! But Tazuna-san's breathing is quick and steady behind her, and the Academy was very stern about things like this. Protect the client. The village depends on you upholding your duty as best as you can. Kakashi-sensei's words, garbled and twisted by her fear and the urgency of the battle at hand combine with her Academy sensei's teachings until all she can remember is "Only trash abandon the mission."

She blocks yet another swing, hearing an echoing ping where Sasuke does the same as he covers himself and Naruto and their respective flank. A twist by the clawed gauntlet sends her kunai spinning, and Sakura stares up into a masked face. Water hitai-ite, she thinks numbly, hand coming up to knock the nin's next strike off course as her other hand scrambles in her pouch for another kunai.

Movement in the corner of her eye, a flash of orange and blue hitting the dirt, and - no one is guarding Tazuna-san's side, and she has her hands overfull here and oh gods, they're all going to die here in the forest outside the walls, and she won't bleed out on her sensei's sandals again, damn it. She won't

("Kick their asses, Sakura-chan!")

Her foot slips backward, hooking behind Tazuna's ankle and yanking. The bridge-builder goes down with a yelp, ungracefully, as she follows suit. The claws go right above where her neck had been, right through where Tazuna-san's gut would be. And then, oh thank god.

"Kakashi-sensei," she blurts, fingers numb around her white-knuckled grip on her weapon. She wants to cry, she wants to cling to her sensei's waist and pretend that he'd comfort her. Sakura wants her mother. He's holding their assailants back by the chains, and he seems unconcerned with the way Tazuna-san is wheezing, or the growling coming from the tangle of limbs that is probably her teammates, and she just wants...she's not sure what she wants, but she knows this isn't it.

Kakashi-sensei cracks the nins' heads together, and they slump to the ground where they are easily restrained. "Any injuries to report?" He asks, and there's a sharpness to his words she doesn't really recognize, but resonates with her training. She looks Tazuna-san over, but sees nothing. Sakura herself, aside from some scrapes and maybe a bruise or two, is completely uninjured.

"No, Sensei." She says, and if her voice shakes a little, well...no one says anything. She tries not to think of bleeding out on her sensei's sandals, but. There's hardly anything else on her mind. The genjutsu-nightmare and the reality afterwards...the similarities and the differences.

Sasuke harrumphs from on top of Naruto, who is squawking in outrage, and just. She's tired. Sakura's limbs are heavy and she's fairly certain that if she were standing, since the drive that kept her fighting is guttering out and leaving her shaky, that she'd fall over.

"Good." Kakashi-sensei says absently, edge suddenly gone, checking the tightness of the restraints. "Now, Tazuna-san, let's chat." Yanking the bridge-builder to his feet, Kakashi-sensei disappears into the brush. Probably not out of earshot of any determined eavesdropper, but all three of the genin are exhausted.

"- scaredy-cat." Sakura catches, and Sasuke's lips are quirked up and Naruto is red around the ears. There's a stuttered denial and an angry, angry retort that has Sasuke grimace. There's blood on Naruto's hand that didn't get reported and neither of her teammates seem intent on caring for the wound.

"Naruto." She says, though it doesn't get anyone's attention. Naruto's screaming and Sasuke's shoulders are at about his ears and every now and then he spits something out that causes Naruto's volume to spike. "Hey." Nothing.

She breathes heavily through her nose, and lashes out with both her fists. For a moment, silence. "Look. Naruto's injured, and no one reported it to Sensei." Sasuke stares at her like there's a second head growing out of her shoulder, and Naruto looks sheepish. Finally. She's tired, her knees are still quivering despite still sitting down, and there's a nightmare hiding behind her eyes. "Give me your hand, let's see if we can't clean it."

Basics, she told herself. The Academy taught the basics. She can clean and bandage a wound. So can Naruto and Sasuke, but a brief rummage through everyone's things reveal that Sasuke didn't bring anything to clean wounds, and Naruto didn't even bring bandages. So it's her stuff or nothing, and she'd rather be the only one digging through her things.

Once she'd washed the majority of the dried blood away, Sakura looked up to meet Naruto's eyes. "I...guess it wasn't your blood? There's nothing here to bandage. You're fine?" Weird, she thought, when Naruto giggled nervously.

His following, "Must've gotten lucky, eh Sakura-chan?" got ignored as Kakashi-sensei and Tazuna-san reemerged from their chat. For a brief minute, when Sakura and Naruto swung their gazes between the two adults and Sasuke stared heavily at their sensei, there was nothing but the far-off sound of cicadas.

"Aa, my cute students. I think we have decisions to make."


	6. Chapter 6

"Now, my cute genin," Kakashi-sensei starts, as Tazuna sweats behind him. The bridge builder looks exhausted, like his ten minute chat with their sensei had wiped out the remainder of his energy levels. ("Not impossible, Sakura-chan. He was pretty hungover this morning.") "While it's not unusual to run into low-level missing nin during a C-rank, it is unusual to be attacked too close to Konoha itself. And Tazuna-san lied to the mission booth! So, my cute students.

"Should we return to the village and get this mission properly labeled? It will be a team decision!" And he smiles, or at least...Sakura thinks he smiles. The skin around his visible eye crinkles in a way that reminds her of her neighbor when he smiles too hard. At least, she thinks with tangible relief, Kakashi-sensei knows they ought to return to the village.

("I...I think he'd let us continue on, like in the first genjutsu, if Naruto and Sasuke don't wise up…") She doesn't think about that, refuses to think of the first genjutsu-nightmare. Of how they faced down missing-nin and ronin and Gato himself because they wanted to continue on. Kakashi-sensei wouldn't let them, not if it were really dangerous.

She wishes she could believe that.

There was that first one, from her survival test. Her first nightmare, before she chopped off all her hair. She vaguely recalls that they continue on, they fight...someone strong. Too strong. Someone dies, not Naruto, not Sasuke. Kakashi-sensei is sick a long time, not that she can remember for certain.

Sakura knows they won't go back. (But oh, she wishes they would.)

The proud declarations of bravery from Naruto, that intense stare of Sasuke's, straight at their teacher, both boys insistent they not abandon the mission. (Is it defiance? She wonders, or is he truly so passionate about the life of this bridge builder? She thinks, in a sort of confused way, that she would know for sure if she loved him. Does this mean she doesn't love him? She misses Ino suddenly, and is unprepared for the unexpected fear that she may die without ever seeing the Yamanaka heir again.)

(She waits for the mental encouragement, her voice with Naruto's cadence ready to speak boldly about not accepting failure, but it's just her own worries echoing around in her mind. Sakura sighs, and grips her knees harshly from her spot next to Naruto. This is fine. She can do this.)

("Hell yeah we can, Sakura-chan.")

So she opens her mouth, a protest on the tip of her tongue. Reasons bead there, almost-said. If she has to be the voice of reason, she tells herself, if she can just convince the boys there's nothing to gain going forward! It's not shameful, she insists to herself, ruthlessly quoting textbook examples of strategic retreat at the niggling doubt and whispers of cowardice in her own head.

But by the time she's made up her mind, and met Kakashi-sensei's gaze again, and looked back over her teammates, she's lost her dredged-up determination. She's imagined the lines that scream "forced smile" on their sensei's visible eye. Her nightmares are just nightmares.

Sasuke is staring at her defiantly, like he expects her to follow without question and like he would argue against any protest she could manage. Naruto has his eyes on her, filled with a painful hope and faith and enthusiasm that shakes her nightmares away.

So she puts on her best smile, the small one that she wore a lot when she was a child-not-genin. The one for strangers and her mother's bosses. her own teachers and the girls who hadn't decided yet if they were bullies. It says happiness and agreement and friendliness and docile-not-a-problem.

She stays silent. ("Sakura-chan, this is our chance! Do not throw away our shot!") She ignores her own trepidations, and smiles that civilian, fragile smile at her sensei. She wants to say "I trust you, Sensei" but she doesn't.

Her tongue is knotted, her doubts heavy. The boys, her sensei, they take her silence for agreement (or at least not as a denial, she's never sure how much Kakashi-sensei really sees with that one eye of his). Tazuna-san says something, but she can't hear him over her heartbeat, over the way she wails in her own mind.

("That's a death sentence, Sakura-chan! We both know someone dies on this mission, how could you not say anything!")

They pick up their packs, dust themselves off. Naruto waves his hand around, the dried blood she didn't get off of him flaking off as they press forward. They have a few more days of walking before they get to the ferry, and no one wants to take too much time lest someone like those Mist-nin find them again.

(Kakashi-sensei has tied up the Mist chuunin and has sent a hawk back to Konoha. Someone will be by to pick up the enemy ninja, and they will be that much closer to Wave. Enemy chuunin, Kakashi-sensei had reminded them, were not outside the obstacles a C-rank mission could be expected to encounter.

This does not make Sakura feel any better, however. Especially since they're all aware now that the mission is almost certainly a higher rank that C.)

As they form up ranks again, Sasuke in the lead with Naruto and herself taking up the right and left flanks with Kakashi in the rear again, Tazuna-san settles back into the middle with an almost jaw-breaking yawn. As though he's exhausted.

("We should hit him a little, Sakura-chan. Just to make him really tired, the bastard.")

"Have I told you lot about my daughter?" He asks, as though he hasn't been singularly complaining about anything and everything Konoha had to offer for as long as they'd been in his presence. And then he waits, actually waits for an answer.

"No, sir." Sakura says, still polite as she can handle, though her mouth turns down into a frown immediately afterward. Sasuke shoots her a look over his shoulder, but she can't really interpret it, so she ignores it. Naruto's look however, is quite a bit easier. It says 'Sakura-chan, why are you answering him so nicely, he's awful.'

("Bless him, Grandma would have eaten him for dinner, Sakura-chan. He's got no subtlety.")

"Well, let me fix that. Now, my Tsunami, she's a bright girl. Always was." The pride in his voice is tangible, and Sakura has the distinct feeling she opened a kettle of eels she shouldn't have. By the time the bridge builder has finished his story about Tsunami, she and her teammates are all clearly quite pleased to see the return of the complaints.

(The respite doesn't last long. Once Tazuna-san tires of complaining about the sunshine, the air-quality - "No salt at all. Don't know how you folk can stand it, there's nothing better than a little brine in the breeze. Puts some fire in your spirit!" - and the unfamiliar vegetation, he returns to speaking of his daughter. After the fourth iteration of the same story, punctuated by intervals of sucking several flasks dry during asked-for breaks and general complaints, Naruto takes a lull in the conversation and rolls with it. There's a desperate pinch to his face, expressions just a little too forced, but he picks up the slack and babbles about anything that comes to mind.)

("Bless his heart, Sakura-chan.")


End file.
